Bravo to Meg Waite Clayton's articulate Op-Ed regarding society's double standard for male and female sexuality, and the Obama administration's consequent restriction of access to emergency contraception. As an adolescent medicine specialist, I have seen the punishing results of stigmatizing girls' sexual expression firsthand, having cared for 12- and 13-year-old mothers. Conversely, I have seen many patients who greatly benefited from using Plan B, the so-called morning-after pill.

Putting our collective heads in the sand will not stop young people from having sex. But nurturing and supporting their resourcefulness, resiliency and proactiveness can prevent a life-altering, unplanned event. Plan B should be available without restriction to all youths, regardless of gender or age.

Claudia Borzutzky

Los Angeles

The writer, a medical doctor, is an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at USC.

***

Clayton asks, "Is there a word for a promiscuous boy that compares with 'slut'?"

There is such a word, one that's widely considered to be the masculine complement to the designation "slut." It's also a monosyllable, and it has three of the four letters that appear in "slut." Alas, that word is "stud."

As long as the boys themselves, men in general and, indeed, many of the girls who sleep with these guys think along these lines, the double standard that Clayton laments will continue to reign supreme.

Fewer babies were born to teenagers in 2010 than in any year since the peak of World War II. Laura Lindberg, of the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health, says better sex education and more widespread contraceptive use have contributed to the decline.

So it's not only a War on Women, it's a War on Successful Birth Control. And Education. And Privacy.

It's about control.

As it turns out, the southern states have way higher numbers of teen pregnancies and births than New England does. What?

Why, those New England elitist snobs!

The birth rate is higher in typically more socially conservative states where it may be harder to obtain hormonal birth control, but Linberg says economics and educational attainment plays a role in those states as well.